


I Will Rise Now

by verity



Series: dcverse [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Choice, Redemption
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-10-11
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/43232">Dirty Children</a> (which you should read first). When one Hellmouth closes, another opens; at least, that's what they say in Sunnydale. Spike and Buffy star in this hopeful, uplifting fic in which almost everyone dies, including them. ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No answer

**Author's Note:**

> Relevant background: This takes place in a universe with an AU Season 8. Slayers in castle, yes; bank-robbing, no. I had not read Season 8 when I started this story, just a few reviews, although I have now. That said: do not expect much, if any, overlap.
> 
> Thanks to my betas, **premeditation**, **angearia**, &amp; **bottomfeederela**, who are swift and awesome and ask great questions! My dear friends **rbka** and **arantzain** have also been oh-so-patient while I discussed the plottiness of this universe with them, and deserve a shout out.

_2004  
_

The midday sun was high overhead when Dawn walked through the piazza. She'd written to Buffy during her lunch break, all about school and cute Italian boys and how the other Buffy refused to get cable. Under her thumb, she felt her twining initials, embossed on the envelope flap: _DMS_. The stationary was new, a creamy ivory set that the other Buffy had bought for her when she'd first come to Rome.

When she came to the post box, she held the letter over its opening for a moment, and then let it go in one quick motion. Dawn went by this box every day during the week; she'd have a letter for Xander, Willow, her sister (addressed to Willow), or, sometimes, Janice. She had a laptop back at the apartment, but writing these missives by hand was more interesting. The patience required to hold the words in her head as her pen traced them on the paper was strangely invigorating.

Summer was coming round again; the light and heat beat down on her shoulders through the thin cotton of her top. Slowly, she'd begun to savor her independence, even if it came without family or America's Next Top Model. Or air conditioning. A light breeze brushed against her arms, and Dawn lifted up her hair to cool the back of her neck.

As she fumbled inside her bag for something to pin her hair up, a scooter came tearing around the square. It stopped suddenly at the corner closest to her with a terrible screech. Dawn looked up, startled, to find the rider waving energetically at her. "_Ciao!_" he squealed before he gazed around him, enraptured. "Ah... Italia. It is so... how do you say.. _bellissima_?"

"Hey," she said, and felt the corner of her mouth tug into a half-smile. "_Roman Holiday_ much?"

Riding on the scooter behind Andrew, she felt more like Gregory Peck than Audrey Hepburn. But that was all right. Her life had been restful and hellmouth-free for almost a year. It was good to have a reminder of where she should be.

Dawn wrapped her arms around his waist more tightly, and closed her eyes. She thought of the feeling of the letter spread wide beneath her hand as she wrote, and the sudden lightness of her hand when she dropped it through the slot.

* * *

As it turned out, Andrew had already been to the apartment. Dawn nearly tripped over his suitcase and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack, which he'd set just inside the door. "Andrew! Geez!" she yelped, bracing herself against the wall.

"Sorry," he mumbled, but he didn't sound very contrite.

Dawn rolled her eyes and picked up the backpack. It was surprisingly hefty for its small size. "Laptop?"

"I also brought my Playstation. And some DVDs... I have _Sex in the City_! We could watch that." Andrew grinned widely. "We could have biscotti! And espresso. Do you have an expresso machine?"

"How long are you going to be here?" she asked as she led him into the guest bedroom, which doubled as their largely-unused weapons room. The largest battle axe hung over the futon threateningly, which Andrew seemed not to notice.

"Oh, a few days, maybe a week," he said, suddenly shifty-eyed. "Big job for Buffy, you know. I mean—"

"Hush!" Dawn scolded him. "I live with Buffy, remember?" She jerked her head toward the other Buffy's bedroom door. "Nice for me that she blackmailed you into spring cleaning again, huh." She stared at him meaningfully until his eyes widened and he nodded.

She leaned against the doorway and watched him while he unpacked, which clearly made him nervous. Something was up, something more than her real sister knew about. Andrew was not known for his subtlety when it came to evil plans. Dawn shrugged. She'd figure it out eventually.

The door rasped against the carpet out in the entry way, and the other Buffy's voice carried across the apartment. "—course we'd come to the opening, I know how much you love early Cubism."

"Braque and I were quite close friends," came a low, gruff reply. "However, that's the same weekend as the rising of Apollo, and I'd truly rather—"

The other Buffy and the Immortal came into view then. She looked very much like the real Buffy, which was a stroke of luck (Willow had advised against using magic for a long-term disguise). Although everyone had tactfully refrained from mentioning that to her counterpart, the other Buffy was even a natural blonde. Right now, she was gazing adoringly at the Immortal, who was... hard to describe.

"_Buona sera_, Dawn." he greeted her, flashing a broad smile. She forced herself to smile back. "And... your friend?"

Andrew had come up behind her. "Yeah, this is Andrew, one of our friends from Sunnydale. He's never been to Italy before." This was, technically, true. "He'll be here for the next week."

The Immortal extended his hand. "_Salve_, Andrew. I am delighted to make acquaintance with any friend of the _signorinas_ Summers." There was that smile again. "I hope your visit is, how do you say, splendid."

"It's incredible to meet you, _signor_, uh, Immortal! I mean, wow, I've heard so much about you, and um, um, I'm a huge fan, and—"

Dawn didn't have to look back to know that Andrew was practically drooling. She kicked him in the shin. "We were just about to go see St. Peter's, so you guys can have the apartment to yourselves for a while."

"_Grazie_," said the Immortal, looking directly into Dawn's eyes. She repressed the urge to shudder.

"Yeah, thanks, Dawnie. You've been studying hard all week, you should have a nice night out," her false sister agreed, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. Her smile was brittle. "Go have fun."

She could feel the Immortal's gaze following them as they made their way out.

* * *

After a few days, Dawn began to be grateful for Andrew's company. The other Buffy's efforts to be sisterly had trickled off after the first few weeks of their time together; their interaction was, necessarily, shallow. Lately, Dawn hardly saw her at all, unless she was hanging out with the Immortal in their living room. The Immortal liked silent films — "the pinnacle of cinematic achievement, yes? D.W. Griffith, so skilled a storyteller!" — and exotic gelato. She knew he would have hated the real Buffy. Andrew had smuggled in microwave popcorn as well as the entire run of _Sex in the City_, a combination that Dawn soon found preferable to her homework. It was almost the end of the semester, anyway, and in a few short weeks she'd be done with high school altogether. Her Assyrian tutor would cut her some slack.

She began, by the third day, to feel as if she were waking out of some enchanted sleep, as if she were peeling off the languages and ancient texts she'd been studying, layer by layer, to reveal something she'd hidden inside. Yes. That night, she convinced Andrew to sneak out with her and stake some vamps under the cover of darkness. It was stupid, but she didn't care. By the second vamp, she was getting into it, drunk on the rush of plunging a stake home and waiting for her target to dust.

Andrew high-fived her after they'd dusted the third one. "You go, girlfriend! You got it."

She looked up into the night sky to see the clocktower of a nearby basilica, the hands of the clock pointing up toward midnight. "Come on," she said, and stuck her stake back into the waistband of her pants. "Let's go home."

* * *

"I'm leaving tomorrow," Andrew told her. "And I have to pack, and I have to meet up with the slayers from Austria. But Giles got me tickets to this _amazing_ opera and I don't know what to _do_." He looked at her with sad puppy eyes.

"I'll go, I'll go," Dawn found herself saying as she put out her hand. Andrew grinned toothily. "But," she added, "Don't think I don't know what you're doing."

He averted his eyes and clasped his hands behind his back. "I have no idea what you're talking about. None at all." He began to inch back toward the hall. She grabbed him by the shoulder before he could go anywhere.

"Look at me, Andrew." When he turned his head further away, she tightened her grip. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

His eyes were so blue, and as deceptively innocent as ever. "I'm looking now."

Dawn took a breath and steadied herself. "I can't come with you, back to—" she caught herself, "America. But I'm going home soon. And whatever it is, whatever you're doing, I'm going to find out. Buffy is going to find out."

"I know," he answered her. Those eyes again. "Just... not yet. Not now?"

This time, it was Dawn who looked away. "I understand. But I won't wait forever."

"I know." She released Andrew's shoulder, and he rubbed it. His expression was still serious. "I know."

* * *

Dawn wasn't a huge opera fan, although she'd gone once before, with the other Buffy and the Immortal. This show, though, was as excellent as Andrew had promised. Maybe the company had spoiled it for her the first time.

Returning home, she saw two men climbing into a red convertible in front of her building; one was in shadow, the other wore a long leather coat. His pale head shone under the lamplight. She froze for a moment, then began to run down the street toward them. "Spike!" she yelled, although she doubted he could hear her from this far off, over the rushing traffic.

But even as she was shouting, the first man moved into the light, and she saw that he was wearing the sort of ridiculous jacket that only tourists ever wore. Or maybe Dale Earnhardt Jr. Her steps slowed, and she felt her cheeks burn. What was she, crazy? Spike was dead, and nothing was ever going to bring him back, and that was why she was here, after all: she had time to learn, time to waste, they were no longer on the verge of dying every five seconds, all because Spike had saved the world.

She looked up from the pavement; the car had gone.

Dawn took off her high heels in the hallway, and padded up to the third floor. The apartment looked the same as ever, although someone had straightened up the couch. When she stepped inside, she felt something cool under her foot. She bent to pick it up. The small scrap of black leather was smooth, soft. It smelled like cigarette smoke and gunpowder when she brought it to her nose, and something else, something—

"Andrew," she shouted, "_Andrew!_"

The apartment was empty.


	2. My mother's house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks: to my betas, angearia, bottomfeederela, &amp; gabriellabelle, who are swift and awesome and ask great questions! My dear friends rbka and arantzain are ever-patient with my plottiness.

**II. My mother's house**

"Can't sleep?" he said, looking across the room at her. He'd dropped the bit of glitter amidst the mess of sheets as soon as he saw her coming down the stairs.

Buffy shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself. "Too jittery. I keep thinking—" She crossed the room to sit down on the cot, and he perched on the edge next to her. "I miss Mom."

"Girls break something new?" he ventured cautiously, but she ducked her head and looked away from him. "Dawn in trouble?"

When Spike put his hand on her shoulder, she curled around into his embrace, but she wouldn't meet his eyes. "No. I'm just tired."

"Hmm." Her hair was damp, freshly washed; he pulled it back from her face, touched her cheek. "You want me to tell you a story?"

"Okay," she said, and tucked her face in the crook of his shoulder.

Now he was thinking of Joyce, too: her patient face upturned while he poured out his sorrows at her kitchen table. "When I used to come by the house, an' talk to your mum, she'd just sit with me so calm and patient-like, like she hadn't a care in the world aside from me, even when I was telling about what Dru liked to do with her kittens. One time, I asked her why she didn't mind me coming by, seeing as how I kept trying to do in her daughter and all. An' she just says to me, calm as you please, 'I keep an axe under the counter.' Not too much difference 'tween that an' a scythe, you know." He knew she was smiling now, and crying a little, too, so he let her tuck her head under his chin while he spoke and combed his fingers through her hair. Didn't need to see her to know her face, to know how much she needed him to pretend for her, to believe for her, when her soul was naked here down in the dark. "Your mum was fierce, an' so are you. Know how to take care of these girls." He kissed her forehead, and she sobbed. "So strong."

Easier for him, these days, to be strong. His soul was ever bare, raw and burning like a star in his belly. Nothing else for him to do but help Buffy, love her, and do what he could to push back the oncoming night.

To her, he said again, "Like your mum, you are."

Their last night in her mother's house, Spike stroked her hair, supple and golden under his hand. Sweet girl. Do anything for her.

* * *

"So you've got this, Red?" he asked, peering in from the hall. She was sitting on Buffy's old bed, tapping away at her laptop, scythe glinting at her side.

"Getting there," Willow answered him; she sighed and her brow furrowed in thought. Spike looked at her, framed by the doorway like a picture, and thought of the girl who'd carelessly invited him in just a few years ago. For a moment, they seemed like twins - but then she tucked a few loose strands of hair behind her ear and looked up at him, eyes calm and knowing. "Do you need something?"

"No," he said, but he lingered at the threshold. "Restless. Need something to do."

She gestured to a stack of books by the desk. "I haven't looked at any of those yet. Still trying to figure out how this puppy was forged."

Spike nodded his assent and took the top half of the stack. He settled himself in the shadiest corner of the room, and they worked in companionable silence. The girls were out preparing the school for the next day's advance; if he focused, he could hear the familiar sound of Harris and the demon girl arguing about something. Otherwise, the house spread around them was unnervingly still.

He turned the pages, only half-seeing what was written on them. When he tried to focus, the words seemed to slide together in incomprehensible forms. All he could think of was the amulet that lay downstairs, how she'd given it to him, the way— the way she and Angel had kissed. Still, he pressed on. His little pile finally yielded something in its penultimate volume, a medieval monograph on Slayer weaponry. "Red?" When she didn't answer, he lifted his head.

The witch was standing in front of window that faced the front lawn. Her expression was obscured by the rays of the setting sun that cascaded through, warming the white curtains. She lifted one hand to draw them aside.

"Willow," he repeated, sharper now. When she didn't answer, Spike closed the book, holding his place with a finger, and rose to his feet. At this, she stirred, turning her head toward him; her hair gleamed like fire in the dimming light.

"Go now," she said. "I think I've got it, or I will when Dawn gets done translating all the scrolls Giles brought up."

"Don't you want...?" He waggled the book.

Willow shook her head. "I'm good." Her hand was still on the curtain she'd tugged aside. "You can go."

* * *

Like a fool, he hoped for a moment, a glorious, terrible moment. Before she even opened her mouth to respond, Spike could see the light in her eyes shut down, cutting him off completely. "—mean anything?" she was saying; the emptiness of her voice echoed in his ears.

"No. Not right now." What else could he say? Buffy protested, but he cut her off— "No. Let's just leave it."

How quickly she gave in.

"We'll go be heroes," he said before he went out the back. He fished his lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one up and inhaled deeply. Hadn't he just told her that he didn't want anything from her, expected nothing? True, all of it; but harsh, just the same.

Heroes. Fierce and shining, secure in the light, letting others do the dirty work. But at the clinch — there. He glanced back inside; he couldn't see her, but he knew Dawn's bright head was in there, somewhere, bent over an old Sumerian text or two.

Spike exhaled, watching the smoke flow out into the cool night air and dissipate. Then he smiled. He should have learned by now, learned from her, what being a hero meant. Trading hope for certainty. Let her go, then. This was what she needed. He, too, could be certain about some things.

He began to walk toward the cemetery, boots clipping swiftly across the pavement.

* * *

She was leaning against his chest, sighing softly in her slip, her pink lips slightly parted. Spike could feel the tension in her thin shoulders relax as she drifted off to sleep.

How small, how narrow his world had been.


	3. I will seek him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks: to my betas, angearia, bottomfeederela, &amp; gabriellabelle, who are swift and awesome and ask great questions! My dear friends rbka and arantzain are ever patient with my plottiness.

Buffy had taken to sleeping in what remained of the north wing; the sun didn't reach her until the late morning, and sometimes she didn't wake, even then. She could never sleep before dawn. Funny, after all these years, what it took for something like that to set in.

Someone was shaking her arm now. She rolled over onto her back and groaned, her eyes still closed. "What? What?"

"Just me, B."

Faith lay down next to her, close but not touching. Buffy opened her eyes slowly, rubbed them and her stuffy nose with the back of her hand. Behind Faith, she could see the motes of dust hovering in the sunlight.

For a while, she was still, just watched the dust move, shift overhead. "Which one?"

"Vi."

"Is Giles still—?"

"Yeah."

She couldn't see Faith's face, tucked under her shoulder in the shadow. It didn't matter, anyway. Buffy knew. Instead, she said, "She's going to do it."

"Can't stop her."

"I don't want to."

Faith lifted her head to meet Buffy's eyes. "I know."

They lay there for a long time, while the sun slowly crept over them. Buffy listened to their breathing, and the soft movements of the air. In and out. Under and over.

It went on and on and she didn't understand why.

* * *

They buried Giles inside the castle, in the little courtyard that never got much sun. His body would be safe. She had a ferocious need to protect him, to protect all of them, that paralyzed her. She walked around the perimeter all night, slept through most days.

Dawn came to her after a week of this, carrying a bowl of soup. "It's Campbell's chicken noodle. Possibly contraband." She sat down next to Buffy on the bed.

Buffy managed to crack a weak smile. "Thanks." After the first spoonful, she was surprised to find herself ravenous; she hadn't felt hungry in days. Under her sister's watchful eye, she drank it all down.

"I brought something else for you," Dawn said, after the soup had been disposed of. "I've had it since Italy, when Andrew was there, being all sneaky. You remember, right?"

She remembered opening the letter, in the kitchen with Xander and some of the girls: Dawnie's loose scrawl over the expensive paper. "Yeah."

"I lied to you." Buffy jerked her head up. "I told you I couldn't figure out what he was doing. I still don't know, not really, and I guess we'll never—" Her sister was quiet for a moment. "When I came back to the apartment, after I went to the opera, I thought I saw— well, I found this." Dawn pulled her hand out of her pocket. Something was lying there, smooth and black, no longer than the length of her thumb.

Buffy didn't take it. "Dawnie," her voice was suddenly high and pleading, "_why_?"

"I wanted something of him for myself." Her sister stood up. "But you need him more than me."

* * *

It was true that he'd haunted her dreams, for the first year, at least. _Every night, I save you._ She wasn't good at this, like him — he'd kept count, she measured only by the moments in which the space at her side yawned like a terrible abyss. It was an open secret among the new slayers, who whispered stories of a tragic romance and noble sacrifice behind her back. Stories made everything too nice and neat. She turned everything that had happened between them over and over in her head, tried to make it fit, tried to piece it together, to make what had happened in that last moment between them— to make it something, at least.

No star-crossed lovers, no eternal declarations, no, nothing neat and tidy here.

Every time she thought of him something twisted in her gut, the emptiness of knowing, and _knowing_ nothing.

Buffy stared at the scrap lying next to her on the bed, but didn't touch it. Its presence seemed to call for some kind of response, some moment of revelation, but instead it spread forth more of the same: more of this numbness, coldness that she felt slide into her body. _Something of him for myself._. Didn't Dawn understand? _You need him more than me._ She wasn't even sure if he was what she needed, what would fill the jagged hole he'd left in her soul.

_Something of him._ Dawn had it all wrong. The only thing this little piece of leather could do was take away from who he was, how he'd died, what he'd meant to her. All it would give her were questions she couldn't answer, more nights she couldn't sleep.

Her cheek was wet. She reached up to touch it and wiped away the tears. Forty girls had died, and Giles, and she couldn't cry for them, but she could cry for him. It was sick. She was sick.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. She hadn't heard Willow come in.

"Dawn told me," her friend said quietly. "She shouldn't have left you alone."

Buffy laughed, wiped more tears from her face. "It doesn't matter. How can it matter? After—" She saw Willow's face, and stopped. This wasn't why Willow was here, anyway.

"I need you to help me with the last part."

She took the knife, turned it over in her hands. "All right."

* * *

Since the Hellmouth, Willow had been approached by the Circle a number of times, and rebuffed the offers without hesitation. This past year, though, she'd confided in Buffy that she wasn't sure how much longer she could hold out. "Too many of the girls— I can't protect us forever, Buffy. Not with magic. That's what screwed everything up in the first place."

Buffy took the wrist Willow held out and began the first cuts. She looked up to see Willow wince and bite her lip. This, too, was a moment when she should feel something. "Maybe this will help balance the scales. We can't undo what you did, but maybe—"

"It won't." The blood was running freely into the bowl in Willow's lap. "You know that. But I can keep _you_ safe. Like you said — what does it matter?"

There were all these questions running through her head. These were the things that made it dangerous to feel, to think. Buffy tried to ignore them and concentrate on what she was doing. She should be thankful, she knew. She was getting the opportunity to say goodbye. "It matters," she answered at last. "It'll be hard without you, Will. And Kennedy—"

Willow surprised her by saying, "She'll be with me. She'll stay with me as long as she can."

Buffy smiled faintly. "That's good, I guess."

The rest seemed to go quickly, once she'd gotten the hang of it. Towards the end, Willow spoke suddenly. "Take care of them, okay? Take care of Dawnie. Take care of Xander, and the baby, and Faith. I wish I—"

"I will." She pressed a finger to Willow's lips. "Don't say it. No more."

She drew back and held Willow's wrist up in the fading light. It was already beginning to heal, scarring thick and dark - a circlet of thorns that would bind her and keep her to the end of her days.

"Close your eyes," said Willow.

When she opened them again, she was alone.

* * *

Buffy took to carrying the little piece of leather with her wherever she went, and slept with it under her pillow. After Willow's departure, it served as a reminder of the secrets she kept — the last words she'd share with no one, her implicit covenant with the dark. She needed him now, and hated him for it. He was the only one who'd ever known her, the only one who'd ever truly shared these things with her, and yet in the end he'd seen nothing.

Sometimes she wondered if she'd been wrong — maybe she'd never been able to love anyone at all.

They all agreed on Cleveland. The city needed a slayer, or two; Dawnie could finish college, living expenses were cheap. It seemed wrong, to decide so quickly, to leave behind Giles and all their sweet girls in the rich earth. Already their faces were beginning to fade in her mind. But they were leaving Scotland before she knew it, and Buffy found herself craning her head to see over the suitcases piled in the back of the van, to see the ruined castle one last time. It vanished from her view behind the sloping hills after a few minutes, but still she found herself looking back. Seeking something she'd never find.

She stroked the leather with her thumb; it was warm from the heat of her palm. Dawn reached over to take her hand, and grasped it tightly; they held him.


End file.
